The present invention provides a new method of making compounds of formula (I):
wherein                R1 is mono- or polysubstituted aryl;        R2 is hydrogen, lower alkyl or aryl; and        R4 is hydrogen, lower alkyl, or halogen.        
Compounds of formula (I) have been disclosed in W. Breitenstein et al., WO 04/005281 which published on Jan. 15, 2004, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. A preferred compound of formula (I) is 4-methyl-3-[[4-(3-pyridinyl)-2-pyrimidinyl]amino]-N-[5-(4-methyl-1H-imidazol-1-yl)-3-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]benzamide (Ia). Compounds of formula (I) have been shown to inhibit one or more tyrosine kinases, such as c-Abl, Bcr-Abl, the receptor tyrosine kinases PDGF-R, Flt3, VEGF-R, EGF-R and c-Kit. As such, compounds of formula (I) can be used for the treatment of certain neoplastic diseases, such as leukemia.
Previous synthesis of compounds of formula (I), and specifically (Ia), involves a hydrolysis of an ethyl ester to a carboxylic acid, which is then reacted with an aniline, and employing diethylcyanophosphonate as a coupling agent as shown in Scheme 1.

This process gives low and inconsistent yields. Furthermore, diethylcyanophosphonate is an expensive reagent. Thus, there is a need for an alternate process that is cheaper, consistent, efficient, and produces compounds (I) in high yields.
It is an object of this invention to provide for an alternative process to make compounds of formula (I) efficiently with high and consistent yields.
It is a further object of this invention to make compounds of formula (I) from lower cost reagents.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide for a process to make compounds of formula (I) utilizing safer reagents.
The present invention overcomes the problems encountered in the previous synthesis described in Scheme 1 and typically resulted in an increased overall yield from 54-86%.